Fast scanning and saving to PDF. Comes with document and business card management software. Supports Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, and NFC. High daily duty cycle for the price.

Cons

Below average OCR accuracy.

Bottom Line

The Wi-Fi networkable Epson ES-500W scans and saves to searchable PDF faster than several of its entry-level competitors, but mediocre OCR accuracy diminishes its overall value.

We're seeing an increasing number of network-capable sheet-feed document scanners lately, including the $399.99 Epson WorkForce ES-500W Wireless Duplex Document Scanner we're reviewing here. But the ES-500W is somewhat different in that it's not often that we see network functionality on an entry-level scanner like this one. (Epson does offer a non-Wi-Fi version of the ES-500W, the ES-400, for $50 less.) The ES-500W is fast for its class, and it saves to image and searchable PDF at a good clip for the price. Optical character recognition (OCR) accuracy is a bit below average, though, but it comes with a well-rounded software bundle that includes document and business card archiving software.

Overall, we found the ES-500W impressive, but its mediocre OCR accuracy dinged it just enough to cause it to come up short in dethroning the Editor's Choice Canon imageFormula DR-C225 as our go-to low-to mid-volume document scanner for a small or micro office. We also like it as a personal document scanner, though in that capacity its OCR accuracy falls short of the Editors' Choice HP ScanJet Pro 3000 s3 Sheet-Feed Scanner.

Design and Features

Measuring 6.6 by 11.6 by 6.9 inches (HWD) with its trays closed, and weighing 8.1 pounds, the ES-500W is a bit shorter, and it weighs 2.1 pounds more, than the Canon DR-C225's 8.7 by 11.8 by 6.1 inches and 6 pounds. (Canon also offers a Wi-Fi version, the DR-C225W, that lists for $150 more than the non-Wi-Fi model). Also close in size but a little lighter than the ES-500W is the entry-level HP ScanJet 2000 (6 by 11.8 by 6.8 and 5.7 pounds). The Brother ADS-2000e (7.1 by 11.8 by 8.7 inches and 7.3 pounds) is a bit taller, longer, and about a pound lighter. As with most sheet-feed document scanners, though, when you extend the input and output trays, the ES-500W's (and its competitors') footprint increases in height and depth significantly.

The ES-500W and its Wi-Fi-less sibling come with 50-sheet automatic document feeders (ADFs) and are rated at 4,000 scans per day. The DR-C225 and the Wi-Fi-capable Canon imageFormula DR-C225W, on the other hand, come with 30-sheet ADFs and have daily duty cycles of just 1,500 scans, while the ScanJet Pro 2000, like the ES-500W, has a 50-sheet ADF, but it's rated at only 2,000 scans per day. The ADS-2000e's ADF also holds 50 sheets, and like the two Canon models, it has a duty cycle of just 1,500 scans.

Of the document scanners mentioned here, the ES-500W comes with the most sophisticated control panel. It consists of seven buttons and five status LEDs. The buttons are: Power, Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), Wi-Fi on/off, Double Feed Detection Skip, Slow Mode, Stop, Start, and NFC (for one-touch scanning to mobile devices). And the status lights are: AP mode (Wi-Fi Direct), Wi-Fi, Error, Automatic Feeding Mode, Ready, Double Feed Detection Skip, and Slow Mode. While it's unusual to see some of these buttons, such as Double Feed Detection Skip and Slow Mode, on the face of a scanner, their functions mostly speak for themselves. In addition, the ES-500W is the only scanner discussed here that supports near-field communication (NFC) and Wi-Fi Direct.

Setup and Software

Mostly, setup is straightforward, but the ES-500W doesn't come with an optical disc in the box. A simple Google search found the drivers and bundled software easily enough. During the installation process, which in addition to downloading and installing the drivers, Epson Scan, and Epson Document Capture Pro, as well as optional instances of Abbyy FineReader Sprint and Presto! BizCard, the scanner's firmware was updated. Overall, the entire process of physically setting up the hardware and downloading and installing the software—due primarily to an inordinately slow extraction and installation routine—took about 30 minutes.

Epson Scan is the primary driver and scanning interface, and Document Capture Pro is a rudimentary document management program that allows you to setup and save workflow profiles. Abbyy FineReader Sprint is a pared-down version of Abbyy's popular OCR program, FineReader, and BizCard is a state-of-the-art business card archiving and contact management application.

Performance

Epson rates the ES-500W at 35 pages per minute (ppm) for single-sided (simplex) scans, and 70 images per minute (ipm) for double-sided (duplex) scans. Each scan, or page side, is considered an image. I tested the ES-500W at the default 200ppi over USB 3.0 using Epson Scan on our testbed PC running Windows 10 Professional. Without the lag time required to save our test scans to either image or searchable PDF, I clocked the ES-500W at 37.5ppm and 88.2ipm, which is significantly faster than Epson's ratings, especially for two-sided scanning. When saving to image PDF, the ES-500W churned at 35.3ppm and 68.2ipm. The Canon DR-C225 scanned and saved the same pages to image PDF at 24.2ppm and 48.4ipm, and the ScanJet 2000 managed 27.3ppm and 54.5ipm, while the Brother ADS-2000e turned in scores of 23ppm and 46ipm.

When scanning to the more versatile and useful searchable PDF, the ES-500W scanned and processed our two-sided 25-sheet (50 pages) document in 44 seconds, compared to the ScanJet 2000's 1 minute, 30 seconds, the ScanJet 3000's 55 seconds, the ADS-2000e's 1:28, and the DR-C225's 1:09. What impressed us about the ES-500W's searchable PDF speed was that, unlike several other Epson scanners we've tested (and some other competing models), it wasn't that much slower than the image PDF speed (44.4 seconds versus 44 seconds, respectively). We should also point out that during our tests, Epson Scan scanned faster and subsequently saved to PDF somewhat quicker than Document Capture Pro. The latter, for example, took 1:01 to scan and save our 50-image document to searchable PDF. Even at that speed, though, the ES-500W outpaced several of its entry-level competitors.

OCR Performance

Were it not for the ES-500W's somewhat mediocre OCR accuracy, it would have easily walked away with an Editors' Choice nod. It converted our Arial font page to editable text without errors down to 8 points and our Times New Roman test page at 10 points, which, while not dismal, is not as accurate as the other scanners discussed here, aside from the Epson ES-400, that is, which managed only 10 points on the Arial page and 12 points for the Times New Roman page. The HP ScanJet 2000 recognized our Arial page down to 6 points without mistakes and the Times New Roman page at 8 points, as did the Brother ADS-2000e. The Canon DR-C225, on the other hand, was accurate down to 6 points for each font. We were, however, able to increase the ES-500W's accuracy to 8 points for both fonts by increasing the scanning resolution to 300ppi, without decreasing scanning speeds significantly.

We also scanned a handful of business cards into BizCard with, as usual, mixed results that depended primarily on the design of the business cards themselves. Cards comprised of common fonts and laid out on white or light-color backgrounds scanned cleaner than cards made up of fancier designs. Since most business cards typically consist of small type, we got much better results by increasing the scan resolution to 300ppi.

Conclusion

There's a lot to like about the Epson WorkForce ES-500W Wireless Duplex Document Scanner. Features are plenty, including NFC, Wi-Fi Direct, wireless networking, and so on, not found on other document scanners in this price range. It also scans and saves to both image and searchable PDF quicker than many of its competitors. At the default resolution, though, it's not quite as accurate at text recognition, but increasing resolution helps. If you need good OCR accuracy from an entry-level document scanner, the Canon DR-C225 is a better choice, as is the HP Scanjet Pro 3000. If you need wireless networking, the Canon DR-C225W supports Wi-Fi. The Canon model does not support Wi-Fi Direct and NFC mobile connectivity, however. In that regard, the ES-500W delivers scan speeds and/or features unavailable from several of its entry-level competitors, making it a strong alternative for low- to moderate-volume scanning in small offices and workgroups, or as a personal document scanner.

About the Author

William Harrel is a contributing editor focusing on printer and scanner technology and reviews. He has been writing about computer technology since well before the advent of the internet. He has authored or coauthored 20 books—including titles in the popular "Bible," "Secrets," and "For Dummies" series—on digital design and desktop publishing softw... See Full Bio

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